Vince the Vet

Timaru veterinarian Dr Vince Peterson was named a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours list.

words: Gilly Oppenheim

He was rewarded for services to the veterinary profession over his career spanning more than 50 years. No-one was more surprised than Vince himself because, as he told me that, “the stuff I did was never done with any thought of r ecognition”.

Vince was born in Fairlie and grew up on a farm in Seadown. He attended Washdyke Primary School, followed by TBHS and then he did his pre-vet medical intermediate at Canterbury University in 1959. Because the Bachelor of Veterinary Science was not taught in NZ at the time, Vince then furthered his study in Sydney from 1960 -1963. He was one of 25 NZ students awarded a Veterinary Services Council bursary to do so.

On completion of his degree, Vince came back to NZ, where he was bonded for 5 years, and he spent 13 years working for the Veterinary Club in Hokitika, mostly working with large animals and mainly dairy cows. Small animals (cats and dogs) were fitted in when time allowed. The Veterinary Club was owned by farmers who hired the vets, so a very different system to today. The West Coast practice stretched from Paringa (150 miles south) to Seddonville (150 miles north) and east to the Maruia Valley, so his job involved a lot of travel. He was the sole vet on the West Coast for most of his first year after graduation and for approximately two years in total.

In 1964 there were no modern anaesthetics, few modern drugs, no broad spectrum anthelmintics, no new surgical techniques or mobile phones, so the vets were practising largely ‘by the seat of their pants’! Nearly every herd of cows was milked by its owner, so the vets dealt directly with the owners and their workers and built up personal relationships. The dairy herds were also smaller, seldom more than 100 cows in the Hokitika area.

In 1977 Vince moved to Geraldine where he set up the Geraldine Veterinary Clinic and worked for ten years. In 1987 Dave and Priscilla Walker retired and Vince took up the administration of the practices in Geraldine, Fairlie and Pleasant Point, plus the two Timaru clinics in North Street and Otipua Road. The latter two clinics eventually centralized and became the Highfield Veterinary Clinic. He received the NZ Veterinary Association Presidents Award in 2009.

Vince retired from clinical practice in 2001 but he has continued his role on the Board of the Veterinary Professional Insurance Society. Its job is to insure veterinary practices against breach of duty claims. Vince has been an assessor for the society for 25 years. He chaired it for 20 years and oversaw its transition from a novice insurer to offering one of the profession’s leading indemnity policies. Besides his long veterinary career, Vince is an avid fisherman and he builds fly rods and ties flies. He is also a life member of the Clay Target Association. In retrospect, after graduation Vince only thought he would be doing clinical work, so his venture into insurance was never envisaged or imagined! His MNZOM is a well -deserved award for his dedication to the veterinary profession.